Withings - ScanWatch

When I was looking for Apple Watch alternatives, I intentionally looked elsewhere. Didn’t take me long to circle back to Withings as one of my life partners has her ScanWatch 1 is still going strong since college days (daily usage, several heavily worn bands that had to be replaced; still only got minor scratches on the watch face). Personally I like functional things that last. If I wanted a nice watch, I would’ve gotten something made in Japan like Seiko or Citizen. For practical purposes, it looks much better than an everlasting Casio. For the price point, functionality, and overall support, I really have nothing to complain.

Hi, I’ve had a Steel HR, a Scanwatch 1 38mm and a Scanwatch 2 Nova. Step counting is as good as my iPhone, when I have it in my pocket whole day. Sleep tracking is good enough for me. I use it mostly for design, battery, step counting and notifications. Notifications are my biggest need and here is my problem with it. I’m not sure to whether it depends but at some SW versions of the app/watch the notifications are not working. Then you have to wait 1-2 months until they release a version with given functionality. My problem is, I need the watch to get notified when calling/messaging from important persons (phone has to be quiet). So I love the design, the straps, the battery, but the issues with notifications let me think about a new Apple Watch.

My needs are really modest - track my sleep, track a single daily 30min rowing workout with the screen off, pass my pretty infrequent iMessage/Phone notifications to me reliably, and for my watch to not look like it's been through a war zone after only three months of use. I'm short, and the perfect height to bang my watch on everything - table edges, doorknobs, door frames, etc. I had an AW5, then an SE2, but replaced those with Withings Scanwatch 1 and 2 so that I could get sapphire glass for durability and 20+ day battery life. They initially did what I wanted them to do at a decent price and looked good doing it, but iPhone notifications have been intermittent at best, and outright broken for months at a time after every iOS update. I've given up resetting the watch to get them to work for a week or two, only to have them vanish again. So ... a) With the better battery life on the AW11, is it feasible to ramp back AOD, refresh rates, turf apps, lower brightness, etc. and possibly get to a 48hr battery life envelope? About 90% of what the AW offers, I don't want or need, so can I prune it enough? b) How is the new glass? Durable enough for daily use for someone who bangs it inadvertently a few times a week, or do I really need to pony up for the twice as expensive titanium version to get the sapphire glass to get a 3-4 year service life without it looking like trash?

With sleep monitoring and ramped down notifications, both my v5 and my SE2 had to be charged every day if I wanted to ensure I monitored my sleep through the night, so I had to get into a routine where it charged while I was eating supper to be ready for bedtime. With 18hr nominal on most models except the Ultra, anyone with any reasonable level of monitoring or notification levels is probably going to have to charge every day. That's fine if that's what someone wants. The price of that beautiful screen and all those features is power draw, and you can only mitigate that to an extent. If you want those features, this is the price you pay, right? But ... I only measure two things - one daily workout and my sleep. I did the gamut trying other options, from Google to Samsung to Garmin to a couple of Chinese models, and settled on Withings with their Scanwatch 2. The true smart watches (Google and Samsung) lasted me another day, which was welcome. The Garmins and Chinese watches got into 10-14 days, while the Scanwatch 2 gets me 22-24 days reliably on a charge.

Sounds like you've been conditioned to accept every day charging as normal. My Garmin Venu 3 got me about 10 days on a charge. My Withings Scanwatch 1 got me about 16-17 days on a charge. My Scanwatch 2 gets me about 22-24 days on a charge. The new Pebble Round 2 I'm considering is going to get about that same value. My AW5 and AW SE2 got 18 hrs nominal. With better settings, lowering the brightness of the screen, choosing the right watch face, managing my notifications and background data access ... I could get into a second day. The cost of all those constantly on monitoring features and that beautiful screen is battery draw.

Battery life? Of all the things someone could be upset about, that is absolutely the LAST thing I would have expected to read. I've turned off raise to wake, and I keep my notifications to calls and iMessages and I get 22-24 days on a charge, religiously. My Scanwatch 1 was worse, getting me about 17-18 days with the same settings, so to me, battery life is a huge plus for these watches.

I've now seen the backlash from the Whoop community, suddenly everyone wants to cancel and go with a different brand. Where to are you moving to? All major Brands have some sort of subscription based model if you want to see all of your data with deep insights. Apple Watch doesn't have a subscription, yes but then if you don't have an iPhone, make your way to the Apple Store and buy an iPhone, without the Apple Watch is useless. Sure the Oura Ring has good data metrics as well, but being a ring it's inconvenient for people who like to train, since it's scratches real easy.

I currently have the Withings Scanwatch 1, I was one of the 1st Beta testers for that watch, in the beginning they promised they won't have a subscription model, but after 2 years they changed the policy and hid the additional deep data analysis behind a paywall. As a loyal customer, you got 6 months of membership and then had to decide if you want to keep paying. So I cancelled my subscription and now only use the watch. I will never go back to them again. (Just my opinion.)

Sorry for a late response but you would have gotten about a month between charges with a withings scanwatch. I have had the 1st gen scanwatch for 3 years so far.  Scanwatch 2 will allow up to 50 meters depth 

Considering the same. Coming off a Withings Scanwatch gen 1. Review here of HR and GPS specs https://youtu.be/Gk3tRHAQH0w?si=EOzbT0Yvo8C5I_c9

The scan watches seem to do all they claim - I don't use most of them - but I wouldn't be buying another one, because the integrated battery cannot be replaced. It's advertised to take 500 charge cycles - which is all well and good but that's an almost meaningless metric - the charge capacity of the battery will very likely be a great deal less long before 500 cycles - like mine which gradually expired over 6 months outside the 2 year warrantee - the watch was still immaculate - but junk.

i tested it for 2 days and i concur

I have one. It replaced my Scanwatch in December. Battery life is North of two weeks, but I don't use it for notifications. I don't have the problems most here have. I also have tbe Thermo, BPM Vision, Sleep Analyzer and the Body+ (Nokia label). The BPM Vision is from last December too. The other stuff is bought years ago. I don't have the problems some describe (I don't subscribe to Withings+).

I have both. And I’d say, if you have an iPhone absolutely nothing compares to the Apple Watch with apple health for features. But you’ll have to charge it every day. On the flip side the scanwatch looks more ‘grown up’ and like a nice quality watch. And the battery lasts much longer, probably 2 weeks min for me. (With notifications and stuff) Both will record what you need. but I think if you go for an Apple Watch you would appreciate all the extra functions you get if you use it with an iPhone, like Apple Pay, Apple Watch music, make calls, all the additional apps and customisable watch faces etc. Hope that’s helpful

Yeah that’s why I got one too, to also have a watch that had actual hands! Plus I recently had heart surgery so I still wanted something with hr monitoring etc! I think the scanwatch is a great watch and it’s nice to have something more formal looking for work!

The scanwatch is a great option if that’s what you’re looking for!

I must say even though I like my Apple Watch I really am also very fond of my scanwatch! They’re great watches

I find my scanwatch report hr and exercise pretty much in line with my Apple Watch tbh no noticeable differences when I switch them up. I always get a comment about my scanwatch people saying it looks nice as well which is nice! I really like both of them lol